MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

'Now that I am a Gladiator, time to rent a good training chamber.' Alex thought as he exited a building.

After reaching the city, Alex went to the inner circle and completed his registration as a gladiator using his newly acquired Thunder Knight captain authority.

The gladiator city was massive and had everything a person could desire, but its main attraction point was the tens of giant arenas with entertaining battles happening every day.

It took Alex ten minutes to rent the best training chamber he could get with the authority of a Thunder Knight captain.

"Domain Ruler, You will only train the Endless Void Art until you reach the intermediate mastery in the Phantom Walk and perfect mastery in Mana Sense." Elder Darrien said the moment the chamber door closed.

"How long will it take me to reach that goal," Alex asked just out of curiosity, but he didn't like the answer he got.

"I would not be surprised If you could not reach intermediate mastery in the Phantom Walk stage even in the next thirty-nine days." Elder Darrien said, appearing in front of him.

'What's the point of such a goal if I can't even achieve it?' Alex thought but kept his mouth shut.

After the past few months, Alex knew Elder Darrien was a man of very few words and did things of purpose, and if he decided something when the time was very limited, then it meant it was the best choice.

"It's not that the task is impossible, but it will be extremely challenging for the current you." Elder Darrien said, seeing Alex lost look.

"You have the physical strength to be much stronger than you are right now, but you are inexperienced with your current strength, which makes you unable to use your strength properly."

"You can train in the Nameless Sword Art, and it would help you gain much better control over your physical strength, but it won't help you with your fundamental weakness of wasted movements, at least not in a short few days."

"So, are you ready to start the training." Elder Darrien said, and seeing Alex's node, he snapped his fingers, and a large area of the wall on the right side of the room turned to blood red.

"Remove your armor, including all your cloths and wear this and stand in the middle of the room." Elder Darrien said, handing Alex some red shorts.

'I have a bad feeling.' Alex thought, checking the shorts and then the crimson-red wall area.

The shorts Alex received were white and had self-healing properties of very high grade, and even though it was of epic quality, they provided no stats bonuses.

"We will start with 20G of gravity." Elder Darrien said, seeing Alex done wearing the shorts.

"You need to stay in this circle and dodge the high-speed projectiles shoot at you." Elder Darrien said, snapping his finger to create a red circle with five feet radius beneath Alex.

"I will increase the room's gravity as your body adapts to it while the speed and number of projectiles will slowly but constantly increase with every passing minute."

"You should also keep in mind that each projectile will be laced with a blood poison that will make you experience a mild headache but getting hit by too many projectiles will make you experience extreme pain."

"Let's start the training." Elder Darrien said, ignoring Alex raised hand.

'It looks like the pain will be a part of the training.' Alex thought, focusing on the red wall before him as he activated the Mana sense and Mana step.

After a moment of calm, Alex saw five blood arrows morph from the wall in a single second and shoot toward him, with a slight interval between them.

Alex easily dodged the five blood arrows with minimal movements, and after a second, five more came but from different angles, and the cycle continued.

The wall area covered in blood was thirty feet in length and twenty feet in height, and each time, the arrows morphed from a different location and shot toward Alex.

After one minute, the number of blood arrows increased to six, and their speed became slightly faster, and with each passing minute, the same thing repeated.

After fourteen minutes, Alex was feeling the pressure not from gravity but from the sheer number of arrows coming at him at every instant from different angles aimed at various parts of his body.

Alex survived for two more minutes before getting grazed by a single arrow that, in a mere moment, made him feel like a fly was crawling in his ears, making him lose a bit of focus which made him get hit by three arrows.

After Alex got hit, the irritation in his ears increased, and even with trying his best, he could only avoid the arrows for two more minutes before getting bombarded by arrows.

"This will be your first lesson. Never enter a battle with expectations, and always be prepared for the worse possible situation." Elder Darrien said as he snapped his finger to stop the blood arrows.

"You got careless after the first hit as you felt the irritation in your ear and divided your focus, thinking that it should be a headache which resulted in your death." Elder Darrien continued in his emotionless and cold voice.

'Elder is right.' Alex thought as he silently stood, even though he felt extreme itchiness in his ears and pain from the arrows stuck in his body.

"You have good footwork for a beginner, but the one problem you have is that you react to an attack much quicker than required, which gives you less time to analyze the situation and make the best decision."

"You need to calm down and also stop trying to make your body work against gravity and use it to your advantage."

"Now, get ready for the next round." Elder Darrien said, waving his hand to heal Alex back to his peak condition.

'I can adjust my reaction, but how do I work with gravity?' Alex thought as he stretched his body and stood in the center facing the wall, now much more calm and relaxed.

--------------------

(11 Hours Later)

It had been eleven hours, and Alex's daily training session had just ended, and now he was lying flat on the ground with his eyes closed as he was mentally exhausted.

'My Mana step mastery has advanced to the Advance stage, but the Mana sense is still at the intermediate stage, which is not surprising.' Alex thought.

Alex didn't know what level of advancement he made as Elder Darrien didn't give him any evaluation and just told him to find it himself in a battle.

Alex did survive for twenty-four minutes against the consistent barrage of arrows under the restriction of 30G of gravity without getting hit even once and survived for a total of thirty-seven minutes which was also his best time.

"The Elemental Cure is ready." Elder Darrien said.

'This is going to be very painful.' Alex thought as he stood up and looked at a dark crystal tub filled with a blazing Red-liquid oozing with intense heat.

The Elemental Cure was a very common Alchemy concoction method that any individual could use to build resistance to a particular element.

The tub before Alex was filled with high-grade fire element concoction, and he selected to start by building fire resistance because it was one of the core elements of nature and most commonly used.

The Elemental Cure has other benefits, like increasing an individual's pain tolerance, improving defense, and improving his talent with that said element.

Alex didn't waste any time and entered the tub, and for the first few seconds, he felt his muscles loosen up, making his body relax, but then he started to experience pain and heat.

'The pain is tolerable while the heat is annoying.' Alex thought, very surprised by the pain and heat level.

Alex lost health as his skin slowly burned off, but the medical properties of the concoction quickly regenerated it.

Alex closed his eyes and rested his head on the tub edge, becoming comfortable, knowing as more time passed, this tolerable pain will become intolerable.

After thirty-two minutes of pain and silence, Alex received a notification from the system congratulating him on gaining Lesser Fire Resistance.

The first forty passed better than Alex expected as the pain level was bearable, but the following thirty minutes were much longer as he felt like lava was running through his veins while his organs were on fire.

The high-intensity pain and heat lasted for thirty minutes and gradually started to lessen with every passing moment. At the end of ninety minutes, there was hardly any pain or heat, and the blazing liquid was now much duller in color.

'If I keep experiencing this level of pain every day for the next month, my pain resistance and regeneration will advance by at least one grade.' Alex thought as he climbed out of the tub.